FiveThirtyEight’s top stories this week

A [FiveThirtyEight]( email [Popular This Week] Sunday, October 2, 2022 [1. How Natural Disasters Can Change A Politician]( [Hurricane Ian Impacts Orlando]( In September 2017, Hurricane Irma swept across the southern tip of Florida, swamping what was then the state’s 26th Congressional District. The following July, that district’s Republican representative, Carlos Curbelo, introduced a bill that would tax greenhouse-gas emissions to help reduce the impact of climate change on his hurricane-prone constituency. Curbelo’s party affiliation raised eyebrows at the time, but for him, the threat of recurrent disasters sent political partisanship out the window. “This is not an academic discussion for those of us who live in South Florida. This is a local issue,” he told Audubon magazine in 2018. [Read more]( [2. 5 Reasons For Democrats To Still Be Concerned About The Midterms]( [2022-ELECTIONUPDATE-0930-4×3]( Last week, I argued that there weren’t yet clear signs of a Republican comeback in polls of the midterm elections. [Read more]( [3. Iranians Are Ready For A Different Approach to Religion and Government]( [0930_POLLA-4×3]( Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup. [Read more]( [4. How Waffle House Helps Us Respond To Hurricanes]( [A general view of a Waffle House ahead of Hurricane Ian, Wednesday, Sep. 28, 2022, in Jacksonville Beach, Fla.]( This 2016 story followed a team of Waffle House operations analysts as they decided whether to close any of the chain’s locations in preparation for Hurricane Matthew, a Category 5 storm that ended up affecting the Florida coast as a Category 2 storm. This week, as at least 21 Waffle House locations in Florida closed due to Hurricane Ian, we thought we should revisit what happens when the famously resilient restaurant shuts its doors for a storm — and why even the federal government pays attention when it does. [Read more]( [5. Democrats Need More Than Beto O’Rourke If They Want To Flip Texas]( [2022-ELECTIONUPDATE-0929-4×3]( Once again, everyone can’t stop talking about Beto O’Rourke. [Read more]( [6. Two Election Deniers Are Facing Very Different Odds In Arizona]( [The outline of the state of Arizona with the words "Election Update" over it]( There are election deniers, and then there’s Kari Lake. While 201 Republican nominees have fully denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election, few have made claims of fraud as central to their campaign as Lake, the Republican nominee for Arizona governor. A darling among former President Donald Trump’s endorsees, Lake has repeated his unfounded claims that the 2020 election was “stolen” and spread baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud. And she looks well-positioned to take on her Democratic opponent, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, as it’s currently a toss-up with Hobbs at a 52-in-100 chance to Lake’s 48-in-100, according to our midterm forecast. [Read more]( [7. The Best Red Zone Teams Are The Ones That Get There]( [Buffalo Bills v Miami Dolphins]( It doesn’t take a degree in Advanced Footballology to know that marching down the field and then scoring in the red zone leads to wins. Conversely, a team that can’t score touchdowns in that part of the field is probably going to be in for a long season. But should teams that find themselves in either situation — on fire in the red area or ice-cold — expect things to continue as the season wears on? Or does luck and regression to the mean dominate results inside the 20? And if so, can we assess team performance in the red zone in a slightly different way? [Read more]( [8. Do Democrats And Republicans Agree On Anything About Climate Change And Immigration?]( [IPSOS-ISSUES-0929_4x3]( The last few weeks have been tumultuous for the issues of climate change and immigration. Record-setting summer temperatures, historic floods and devastating hurricanes have raised the stakes for the climate-change provisions contained within the Inflation Reduction Act. Meanwhile, Republican governors in Florida and Texas have attracted media attention for paying to transport migrants and asylum seekers to liberal areas of the country. [Read more]( [9. Women Have Swung Toward Democrats Since The Dobbs Decision]( [Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman Abortion Rights Rally In Montgomery County]( With about a month before the midterm election, some Republican candidates across the country are scrambling to moderate their position on abortion. Supporting the recent Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — which overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the constitutional right to abortion — might be a winner in a Republican primary, but early signs are that it makes it harder to win a general election. [Read more]( [10. The Datasets We’re Looking At This Week]( [The words "data Is plural" written in red on a white background]( You’re reading Data Is Plural, a weekly newsletter of useful/curious datasets. Below you’ll find the Sept. 28, 2022, edition, reprinted with permission at FiveThirtyEight. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Weekly Listen [Play]( [Politics Podcast: There’s A 6-In-10 Chance One Party Will Control Both Chambers Of Congress]( [FiveThirtyEight] [View in browser]( [ABC News]( [Unsubscribe]( Our mailing address: FiveThirtyEight, 47 West 66th Street, New York, NY 10023.